George Carlin - Euphemisms & political correctness
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in threads about renaming and sanitized language as a classic comedic statement of the case against euphemism.
What it is
A George Carlin routine on euphemisms and political correctness, tracing how shell shock became PTSD. The uploader adds context about euphemism in political language.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2019 to 2022.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec yotamoron · 2021-04 · on “Medical Student banished from UVA campus for questioning Microaggressions”
George Carlin says it best (as usual...): [this video] He also said: "Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners".
Cites drost · 2022-02 · on “Renaming SRE outage “post-mortems” for psychological safety”
This article reminds me off that George Carlin bit on political correctness > There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can’t take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap. In the first world war, that condition was called shellshock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables: shellshock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy years ago > Then a whole generation went by and the second world war came along, and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t s
Critical coldtea · 2019-10 · on “Monty Python at 50”
George Carlin also said this: [this video] [LINK] It's also not always clear cut who is the real underdog and who the gentrified upper middle class finger-pointing comedian who pretends to be the greater person...